1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interactive data, and more particularly, to an information storage medium containing an interactive graphics stream used in controlling reproduction of multimedia contents, and a reproducing apparatus and method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to control multimedia contents provided to a user, a menu to manage the multimedia contents is provided together with the multimedia contents to the user. Through this menu, contents producers provide a variety of options of managing the multimedia contents to the user. The user is provided with functions such as playing of a movie by chapters and viewing of bonus tracks, in addition to simple reproduction of audiovisual (AV) streams, such as playing movies.
A menu to manage the multimedia contents includes text information. Here, text information refers to information solely formed of text. In other words, text information is information written in different languages, including Korean, English, and Japanese, about the multimedia contents. A contents producer who produces and provides multimedia contents to the user produces menus in a variety of languages and stores the contents in a storage medium so that the contents can be sold to people in various languages. In the conventional DVD, data forming this menu are produced and stored separately for each language. This is to simplify controlling the data in a DVD reproducing apparatus.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing menu streams for respective languages stored in a language unit of a conventional DVD. Here, a menu stream is a stream in which a menu that is produced and includes audio, video, sub-picture, and highlight information is multiplexed as one stream.
Referring to FIG. 1, it can be seen that a menu stream 130 is prepared separately for each language.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a reproducing apparatus in which a DVD reproducing apparatus selects a language according to predetermined system parameters and reproduces a menu stream written in the selected language.
Referring to FIG. 2, the DVD reproducing apparatus selects a menu corresponding to a language set by a user in advance according to a predetermined rule. Preset language information is stored in a system parameter storage unit 210. A menu language selection unit 220 reads, for example, a menu language code stored in system parameter #0 (SPRM0), and selects a menu stream having the same value as the menu language code, by selecting one among the menu streams described above while referring to FIG. 1. A decoder 230 reproduces the selected menu stream.
If menus are thus prepared for respective languages, storage space is seriously wasted because non-text information such as video data, which consumes a large amount of space and does not have a language limitation, is included in menus prepared for the respective languages. In addition, there is a problem in that it is impossible to change a language while video data is being reproduced. Also, because a method of selecting a menu is predetermined, the menu cannot be selected by criteria other than languages.